Quote of the day 19th January 2018

"Mr Trump is a deeply flawed man without the judgement or temperament to lead a great country. America is being damaged by his presidency. But after a certain point, raking over his unfitness becomes an exercise in wish-fulfilment because the subtext is so often the desire for his early removal from office.

 That is a fantasy."

 "Mr Trump's mental state is imposible to diagnose from afar, but he does not appear to be any madder than he was when the voters chose him over Hillary Clinton."

 "Unless he can no longer recognise himself in the mirror (which in Mr Trump;'s case would surely be one of the last powers to fade) neither his cabinet nor Congress will vote him out.

 Nor should they. Alarm at Mr Trump's vandalism to the dignity and norms of the presidency cuts both ways."

 "Every time Mr Trump's critics put their aim of stopping him before their means of doing so, they feed partisanship and help set a precedent that will someday be used against a good president fighting a worthy but unpopular cause."
(Extracts from a leader article in The Economist about the first year of the Trump administration.)

In other words, if you believe in democracy, you need to have much stronger reasons than not liking the result of an election to try to remove someone before the term for which they were elected is up.

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